“Not bad,” Miranda twisted in her seat, presumably so she could also get a better look. “They might be a bit short for me, though.”
“If they keep themselves fit like Beth’s man, does it really matter?”
Good God. Had I been plunked into a bad romantic comedy? Were my friends on the prowl for wedding-day hook ups? Miranda and Lisa were consenting adults who could do what they pleased, so all the power to them? I took a large swig of my wine—then almost coughed it back up, as the tannin-full red hit the back of my throat.
“Beth.” Robert had returned to the table, his buddies close behind, but he paused as I sputtered loudly.
Even though I continued to cough, I rose from my seat, and squeezed around Miranda to stand next to my fiancé. I tried to clear the burning sensation that had spread up into my nose, but I was still incapable of speaking, so I merely held out my hand, and tried to listen to Robert’s introduction over my own racket. Devon had short, sandy hair that was jelled into a peak at the front, while Mark’s darker brown locks were curly and swept down over his forehead. They both greeted me politely, showing off excellent dental care as they smiled and nodded, then in near synchronicity they turned curious glances to my friends.
Was this all a set up? Were my overwrought nerves playing tricks on me?
Mostly recovered from choking on my wine, I took over the proceedings by presenting my friends. After another round of ‘pleased to meet yous’ and handshakes, those of us standing took our seats. Our waitress returned as Devon and Mark settled themselves around the table to rattle off the evening specials and take drink requests. She made a mental list as our friends rhymed off their preferred libation, then zig-zagged her way over to the bar to place the orders.
“So, you three were gymnasts?” Miranda said. Her enthusiasm in asking the question seemed to confirm she was hoping for a firsthand experience of what a former gymnast could offer in the department of bedroom athletics later in the evening.
The three men exchanged looks that bordered on smirks, suggesting this wasn’t the first time they’d faced off with overly eager questioners.
“We were,” Robert said as he shifted in his chair, so he could stretch his arm across the short gap to mine.
“Devon and I only competed on the college circuit.” When Mark smiled, dimples registered in his cheeks. He flashed the boyish expression across the table, lingering longer on Miranda. “But Robert, he was really top notch—still is of course.”
Robert shook his head slightly. “You don’t give yourself enough credit, never did. You were both amazing competitors, but the field was packed during our years in college.”
“We had our specializations, but you were a better all-around competitor.” Devon finally chimed in.
Robert shook his head, a little more vehemently this time. This whole conversation felt rehearsed, like it was something they’d spewed in bars countless times before. My friends were quickly becoming a captivated audience. It didn’t matter. I didn’t need to worry about what kind of shenanigans Miranda and Lisa got up to after we left the restaurant.
“Even if that was true, in the end it came to nothing—” Robert’s voice trailed off. I wasn’t sure if this was part of the act, or because he suddenly remembered he didn’t need to play his part. He didn’t need to pick anyone up tonight.
At that moment, our waitress returned, which forced an intermission to the curiosities of the gymnastic-bros pick-up melodrama.
“Now that we all have drinks, I think a toast to the bride-and-groom-to-be is in order,” Miranda said, as she lifted her glass of wine.
Heat crept up into my cheeks. It was fine. Of course, they wanted to toast, they were here to witness our wedding. I couldn’t—shouldn’t—shut down every attempt to celebrate. I picked up my half full glass and glanced around the table, my gaze finally settling on Robert. He was looking at me, one side of his mouth curled up. He loved me. I knew he did. I could see it in the way his blue eyes focused on me, the way he looked at me, not searching or expecting something, just looking and enjoying.
Was he right, should we postpone things? So, I could tour without feeling like I was chained to some other spot in the world, wherever he was, and I wasn’t? No. I’d feel that way without being married anyway.
“To Robert and Beth.”
Our friends clinked glasses, bringing me back to the present. I reached toward the centre of the table to join in, when something cold and wet hit the back of my head, quickly draining down my neck, and soaking into the collar of my shirt. I jerked back, turning in my chair to find a tall, busty, brunette in a black wrap dress and huge heels, standing behind me, glass still poised in its final, downturned position.
“He left me.”
Simon’s fiancée. No longer fiancée? Emily. Shit.
Small mercy of mercies, she set her glass on the table, rather than fling it at me. “He told me he wanted to talk to you one more time before we left, and when he came back to my parents—four hours later—he told me I could keep the ring if I wanted.”
My mouth went dry. I swallowed hard and forced myself to speak. “I didn’t tell him—”
“You must have told him something.” Emily planted her feet wide, hands on hips, clearly ready for fight.
I peeked across the table at my friends. If Miranda and Lisa weren’t aware of who this was, they’d figure it out soon—Miranda had told Simon where to find me, after all. Their faces didn’t communicate much besides complete and utter shock. Who was this crazy woman pouring drinks on other people’s heads? I barely knew myself.
“He seemed unhappy.” I tried to keep my voice calm and measured. I was confronting a wild animal who would strike again with little provocation. “I only told him he should think about what he really wanted.”
“Unhappy.” Emily practically hissed at me. “He was just tired. He was about to graduate from med school, everyone is fucking tired.”
I felt a hand reset on my shoulder, Robert silently lending support. “I’m truly sorry—”
“You selfish bitch—”
“Em.” An older man, who’d I guess was Emily’s father, placed one hand on her shoulder, another on her elbow, and steered her away from our table. She didn’t resist. Thankfully. As she staggered away, her head sagged toward her father’s shoulder and she appeared to start to cry. Neither looked back.
I watched them work their way to a table by the door, made all the more difficult by trying to maneuver side-by-side. By her lack of stability—and her entire outburst, really—I’d guess she was drunk. I could understand her behaviour; that she needed someone to blame for her disappointment, although I rather wished I didn’t have wine dribbling down my back. Once Emily and her father reached their table, where a woman, presumably her mother waited, they gathered up their coats and prepared to leave.
Simon had said they didn’t live in town, hadn’t he? I crossed my fingers that I wouldn’t run into her again. Once the holidays were over, she must have to go back to the west coast, where she had a job, or a residency, and presumably an apartment and friends aside from Simon, and would pick up the pieces of her life. Hopefully, Simon would do something similar.
I felt a squeeze on my shoulder. I shook my head, breaking my fixation on Emily and her family shuffling out of the restaurant—which I only now realized was totally silent. It was packed tonight, and I could have heard a toilet flush, if someone had been so unfortunate to have gone to the bathroom and missed my drama unfold in front of fifty strangers.
Heat flooded up my neck and into my cheeks. Could someone blush so hard they burst into flames? I touched my fingers to my skin, which felt like ice in comparison. As I turned back to my friends, I ran my hand over my hair, pausing as I hit the damp patch at the back where my head was soaked in alcohol.
“Are…you…okay…Beth?” Lisa paused between each word, like she was trying to wake from a dream.
My hand trailed down my head, to my neck, then to my damp collar.
“I suppose so?”
“Beth was that—” Miranda leaned forward, her eyes wide.
“Simon’s fiancée—” I nodded.
“Ex-fiancée,” Lisa corrected me.
I stood, pushing my chair away with the backs of my knees. It scraped across the floor, reminding me that the restaurant hadn’t returned to its pre-drama hubbub. “I’m going to the ladies’ room,” I said, then left the table.
∞∞∞
We stayed for dinner. I spent several minutes in the bathroom attempting to dry my shirt and restyle my hair, and in general not be seen by another person. My body temperature fluctuated wildly, telling me my sympathetic nervous system hadn’t quite sorted itself out yet. Eventually, an older woman with elegantly styled white hair came in, walked over to me and patted my arm. “It happened to me once, dear. Never mind that bitch.” Then she gave me a pinch on the cheek before heading off to one of the stalls for a pee.
Right. Never mind that bitch. So said the little old lady I’d never seen before.
I made one last attempt to pull myself together, then went out to my friends, all of whom had downed their drinks and were prepared to go—anywhere but here—but I refused. I hadn’t done anything wrong, Emily and her parents had left, and as my body slowly returned to a normal resting state, I realized I was hungry. Since lunch, I’d run, and aggressively cleaned my bathroom. I hadn’t put any sustenance in my body in the meantime. I might lash out and call someone names if I didn’t get a breadstick and salad soon.
“Dinner went well,” I said, as Robert and I climbed the stairs to our apartment.
“Besides the encounter at the start?”
“Yeah, besides that.” Once I convinced everyone we should stay, my friends were overbearingly polite and didn’t ask questions about what had happened. We busied ourselves with the menu, but after the waitress had taken our orders, and when no one picked up a new line of conversation, I took the plunge. By the time the appetizers appeared on the table, I’d laid out the whole of my re-encounter with Simon and the flirting between friends and gymnasts had recommenced.
At the top of the stairs I removed my jacket, back to the wool pea coat of before Christmas, and hung it on our coat stand. “Do you think our friends are having sex by now? Mark and Miranda, Devon and Lisa, right?”
Robert tried to keep a grin from spreading across his face, but he didn’t quite manage it. He checked his watch. “It’s a distinct possibility. I hadn’t suggested this dinner with the hopes of setting anyone up…”
I laughed. Now that it was over, and we were settling into our own, cozy home, it was kind of funny. “I know. It was evidently on Miranda and Lisa’s minds. They were sizing up your buds the moment they arrived at the restaurant.”
Once Robert had removed his own jacket and hung it up, I grabbed both his hands and squared myself, so I faced him directly. The remnants of his smile faded, his gaze now searching my face, as he tried to predict what I was about to say.
“I want to get married, like we’d originally planned, in two—no I guess it’s just a little over one day—now.” I squeezed Robert’s fingers tightly, as if it would deepen our connection. He didn’t respond, but continued to look at me, waiting for me to get everything out. “It doesn’t matter if we’re married or not. If I end up going out on tour, and you’re not with me, I’m going to feel tethered to you. I’m going to feel a pull in my chest that only you can answer. If I’m offered a position with Cirque Celestial, I’d rather head out married, than wonder when we’ll get the chance again.”
Robert raised my hands to his face and gently placed a kiss on the top of each set of knuckles. As he did, I loosened my grip, and he turned my hands over so he could plant follow-up kisses on inner wrists, then my palms.
“Okay,” Robert said, then kissed my palms again. “I wanted to give you the chance to change your mind if it was holding you back from the audition.”
I smiled as I stepped in closer to Robert, sliding my hands around his waist. “It was, it still is. It won’t be easy on us if I’m offered a position and you don’t come along.”
Robert brushed a lock of my hair out of my face, tucking it behind my ear with one hand, while the other came to rest on my lower back. “We won’t be the first couple to maintain a long-distance relationship—Dehlia and Stephen did it for years before they settled here.” His hand slid lower down my backside.
“I suppose we won’t have to rely on snail mail to correspond. We can video chat everyday if we want.” I inched forward, closing any remaining gap between us, our bodies pressed tightly together.
“If you start out in Canada, at Cirque Celestial’s training centre, I could visit you on weekends, whenever I’m not performing around here.” The hand that Robert had used to brush my hair trailed down my neck and was now resting lightly on my collar bone, his thumb pulling at the collar of my shirt.
“That’ll work for a little while, but what are we going to do once I’m out on the road? We won’t be able to physically connect for months.” I untucked Robert’s shirt so I could run my hands over his bare skin.
“You mean we won’t be able to have sex?” Robert cocked an eyebrow.
“Or even just hug,” I flexed my biceps around my fiancée. I might not be the type to demonstrate a lot of PDA, but I still needed physical contact with my soon-to-be husband.
“I’m sure we can figure something out.” Robert leaned in, kissing me softly on my lips.
“I sure hope so,” I said as Robert undid the top button of my shirt, peeled it back, and kissed the skin over my collar bone. “I sure hope so.”
Chapter 9
When I woke up the next morning, Robert’s arm was draped heavily across my belly as he snored quietly in my ear. Usually, if I woke up in such a predicament, I would struggle out of bed, trying not to dislodge Robert as I slid off the mattress and out of the sheets, but today I snuggled closer. His body was so warm. It was too bad he wasn’t awake. My cuddling wouldn’t last long, and he couldn’t enjoy it while he was unconscious. Lying on my side with my shoulders—tight and over-worked from constantly climbing the silks—crunched into an uncomfortable degree of internal rotation, made this position unpleasant at best. So, for a few moments, as long as I could tolerate the mild tingling in my rotator cuff muscles, I nestled up to my fiancé.
It should be all smooth sailing at this point, right? Only one full day left before Robert and I would be married. Later this morning Robert was off to pick up his cousin and close childhood friend, Xander, from the train station in Pine Tree; our friends from the circus, Angel and Jackson should be arriving late this afternoon in time for the rehearsal dinner; and that was nearly that. Simon was gone, hopefully back to his life, or whatever was left of it that he wanted, and although Emily clearly hated me, there was no reason she should attempt to interrupt my wedding.
My parents were something of an X-factor. They could find out. They could care just enough to try and ruin something important like this. More likely my brother Gregory was vindictive enough to interfere—if he happened to find out. I made Miranda and Lisa swear, on pain of death, that they wouldn’t say a word if either of them happened to run into my family. My friends would have said something by now if they’d crossed paths with my parents or my brother. They’d give me a warning if I needed to brace myself for an attack.
What else could happen? Even though Robert and I hadn’t talked much about our previous love-lives, he’d assured me after the last visit from Simon, that he didn’t have any skeletons in his closet waiting to spring to life. He’d been too busy training and competing for most of his youth so that he’d never had a serious girlfriend. Then, once his Olympic dream was over, he’d begun performing, and I already knew the worst of the rumours from Circus of Height.
I closed my eyes and focused on my breathing, counting as I slowly inhaled. When I reached four, I exhaled in the same manner. I needed to rein in my thoughts before they spiralled out of control. Our wedding wa
sn’t going to be ruined. We would be fine after the wedding, too. Even though Robert and I first met a mere seven months ago, I knew him well. Our relationship would hold, even if I went out on tour for a few years. I’d have breaks. Robert could travel to visit me periodically. What was the saying, absence makes the heart grow fonder? I was already so fond.
I tried to re-focus on my breathing, counting in and out, making my mind blank, so I might fall back asleep, but after what felt like an hour—in reality it was ten minutes—I slithered out of bed, managing not to disturb Robert. In the living room I pulled out my personal therapy tools: foam roller, peanut, racket ball, and got to work on my achy shoulders.
∞∞∞
A little after eight, Robert wandered out of the bedroom. I was lying on the floor, my lower back pressed into the floor, my arms outstretched. I’d been self-massaging for half an hour. My shoulders were tender, but they felt relieved after so much attention. Did going on tour with Cirque Celestial include access to good physiotherapists? I needed it.
“All right there, love?” Robert paused, hovering over me, one eyebrow raised high.
“Achy shoulders.” I lifted my head as I drew my elbows into my sides, propping myself up.
“Better take care of those,” Robert said as he circled around me to seat himself on the floor in next to me. “I need to be on my way by nine if I’m going to pick up Xander at Pine Tree at eleven. The weather service is forecasting a possibility of snow starting later this morning.”
I nodded as I worked myself up to a seated position. “Okay. Miranda and Lisa are going to pick me up around ten to go over to Dehlia and Stephen’s. If everything hasn’t already been scrubbed and polished to a shine by Dehlia and Rachel, and decorated to the hilt by Becca, we’ll try to make ourselves useful.”
Robert laughed. “Hard call. There might be something left for you to do, but between the Nicks’, you might find yourself spending most of your morning sitting and drinking coffee—do you think you could handle being fussed over for a bit?”
Love's Final Act (Circus of Love Romances Book 3) Page 11